{"id":320,"date":"2026-02-10T11:36:40","date_gmt":"2026-02-10T11:36:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bemjax.com\/blog\/?p=320"},"modified":"2026-02-10T11:36:40","modified_gmt":"2026-02-10T11:36:40","slug":"apes-can-imagine-too","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bemjax.com\/blog\/apes-can-imagine-too\/","title":{"rendered":"Apes can imagine, too"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>For the first time, Johns Hopkins University researchers have shown that apes can engage in pretend play. Across three experiments, a bonobo interacted with imaginary juice and pretend grapes challenging the idea that imagination is uniquely human. Published in <em>Science<\/em>, the findings suggest that this capacity may trace back 6\u20139 million years to our shared evolutionary ancestors, reshaping how we think about animal minds and what truly makes us human.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Apes Share Human Ability to Imagine\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/NUSHcQQz2Ko?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>For the first time, Johns Hopkins University researchers have shown that apes can engage in pretend play. Across three experiments, a bonobo interacted with imaginary juice and pretend grapes challenging the idea that imagination is uniquely human. Published in Science, the findings suggest that this capacity may trace back 6\u20139 million years to our shared [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,6,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-320","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-animal-cognition","category-cognition","category-human-cognition"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bemjax.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/320","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bemjax.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bemjax.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bemjax.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bemjax.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=320"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/bemjax.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/320\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":322,"href":"https:\/\/bemjax.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/320\/revisions\/322"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bemjax.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=320"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bemjax.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=320"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bemjax.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=320"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}